Deep Water's Dread
by Pie-12th
Summary: Snape hates water, he always has. He wonders if anyone can relate to how he feels about the evil liquid. There are so many substitutes. Why not...use them?
1. One: Intro to Water

Author's Notes: Nothing much. An exercise in fragments and commas, as you will readily find out. Nearly killed the spellchecker, haha. I may yet turn this into more than a oneshot. Not sure yet. Leaning on the idea heavily though. Tell me what you think. Leave it as is, or develop it further?

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Unknown, what lay beneath the deep, darkness of the water. Nobody knew for sure what dwelt down in the watery abyss. Things not even magic could retrieve, secrets not even the greatest sorcery could fathom. And people willingly dove, swam, indeed, bathed in those very waters. Could any lone wizard or witch say they knew for a fact what poured into their daily bath? Could any of them speak of what they couldn't see, couldn't feel, hear, nor smell?

Yes, it infected everything, the murk of the water. He did not understand the way everyone so carelessly used it. Never knowing what crept into their skin, their bodies, their very lives. It consumed them, until they could not live but to immerse themselves in it. Daily, weekly, monthly, for a lifetime, they were surrounded in it, by it, for it.

The merpeople, he pitied them the most. They lived always in the darkness of the deep water, in the untold evilness that was the liquid. Perhaps they knew, perhaps they didn't, yet they could do nothing. Nothing but swim and thrash and cry in the darkness. The darkness that wove its way through the pips, the pipes of the castle, the pipes of his home, the pipes of every dwelling in England, in the world! It spread everywhere, sparing none from its grip and lull.

The potions he brewed were much more pure. Seldom did he try to use the foul substance that would ruin his concoctions. There were substitutes, yes, many substitutes. They would not, could not, spread the vileness of the water. Blood, bile, juice, nectar, other liquids could be used. They would keep his precious potions pure. Maybe not good, for he could brew and bottle drinks and poisons that would make the skin turn in on itself, make the blood dry and turn to stone, make the stomach eat the body from the inside out. No, not always good.

Yet there did lie in his potions classroom elixirs and liquors to grant every dream of whoever would use them. There did lie some good in his hidden wares. In the locked drawers and shelves of his office, of his classroom, he held the draughts and the washes with power to turn your worst enemy into your lifemate, cure any ailment, stave off the cold, gripping hands of death himself. No, not always bad, either.

And all because he did not use the filthy wetness that was water! Water that could wear down the hardest obsidian, water that could dissolve the most potent powders and grains.

They stare at him in wonder, in shock, in disgust and mistrust. They stare at his unwashed appearance, his grimy hands, his greasy hair, his smeared and dirty robes. They stare and they whisper and they criticize because they do not know the truth. They have no inkling of the horror they lived their lives with.

He sneered and smirked at them. He let them carry on, getting infected and transferring the vileness from one to the other. They kept it up until the population was nothing but the proverbial bottle of the water, used to harbor the contamination it stretched across the land.

None had he met who shared the same thoughts. None who could say they stayed as far away from the dread of the water as he did. None who were as dirty and grungy as he. Non who managed to see the truth. Yet. When he found the one who would ward off the water forever, and keep him safe from it.


	2. Two: Intro to Blood, Intro to Ink

Yeah, I know it took awhile. It always does for me. Once again, short chappie. Go and cry about it.

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. If I did, the books would be much dirtier.

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Chapter Two

A burning sensation. Corroding, melting and burning his pale skin. The accident of a clumsy student. A splash from an ingredient dropped too far from the cauldron. It took all of his hard-earned restraint to not hex the boy with every curse he knew. A deep breath in, a shaky breath out, a slight growl. His dull black eyes burned with a malevolent fire when he turned to look at the student.

He quivered visibly under such a glare, and opened his mouth as if he dared to speak.

"You will not speak. You will leave this classroom. You will not bother to take your things, for you will be back here for detention this afternoon." The professor's cold, frighteningly calm voice echoed throughout the now silent dungeon. The student stood still for a moment, then all but ran from the stone room. When his scurried footsteps were out of hearing range, still nobody moved.

The Professor flicked the water out of his greasy, jet-black hair, and barked at the class to get back to work. He ignored none of the details in telling them what would happen should anyone else spill their potion. He turned back to his desk and turned his back to the class. When the hushed whispers began, for the first time in his career as a teacher, he flatly ignored them.

_"He wasn't mad this time, wow."_

_"Are you kidding? He was furious!"_

_"I wonder what the deal is..."_

_"What's he going to do to him?"_

_"It wasn't even anything gross, just water."_

The hushed conversations were exited, and continued out the door at the end of the class. When the last student closed the dungeon door, Severus shuddered. A deep, body-racking shiver that made his teeth clack together. Sitting down on the floor, he violently threw a vial of the student's potions against the stone wall. The shattered glass slid down slowly, trapped in the sickeningly think liquid.

_Foul substance_, he thought. _Tainted_.

With a shake of his head, he rose up from the chilly stone floor and cancelled the detention. Discipline or no, spending time with the worthless, clumsy student was not on his to-ever-in-his-life-do list. An absent wave of his grimy wand cleared away the oozing mess on the wall.

Growling softly, his black-as-midnight robes swooshed as he stepped quickly out of the room. His white teeth were bared, but the furious, trembling teacher hardly noticed. His fists clenched so that his sharp fingernails dug into the soft skin of his palms. Blood trickled down his wrists, and students passing him in the hall gave him a wider berth than usual. No one met his flaming eyes. He preferred it that way.

He raked his nails over his arms and hands, trying to put feeling into his skin again. _Unclean...I'm so unclean..._ The dark, rough cloth of his robes didn't show the blood, but long lines of red blossomed from his ripped skin. The thought of merely tearing his flesh away from his skinny frame was almost too tempting. His fingers got halted briefly by a flap of the wet tissue.

His empty eyes darted from the floor to uneasily regard the deserted classroom he'd found himself in. A hissing noise escapes his tightly drawn lips and he whirls out again, in the direction of his own dark room.

A slam of the door announces and warns of his arrival, but not even the portraits on the wall cracked an eye open. It was far too common for the potions master to come stomping to his room between classes. He tempted to skip his next class, the NEWT class, but dismissed the ridiculous thought. Putrid water contamining him or not, class had to be taught.

Though the water on the coarse fabric had dried, there was still the matter of his blood drying and staining. With a frustrated sound, he swapped clothes quickly. Almost as an afterthought, he rubbed the now flaking blood from his skinny arms.

The good thing about his brooding, frightening expressions was the fact that when he entered the potions dungeon once more, the class fell silent immediately. Stifling a sarcastic snicker, he snapped the page number at them. Absent wave of his wand sent the ingredients and instructions on the board at the front. The small class was continuing a concoction from the day before, so no speaking or verbal instruction was needed.

Severus sat down at his desk, stiffly balanced on the edge of the hard chair. A quill flashed from a holder and a tiny bottle of black ink, thicker than normal, was uncorked. The unfinished letter was drawn out from the locked drawer. He hid a smirk when he noticed the many students just burning to peek at what it was. Fortunately all of them knew better.

The scratch of the old worn out quill on the parchment was heard in the quiet room, amidst the sound of various things being cut and poured and stirred. Pausing every so often, he snarled something disciplinary to any student who wasn't doing what he was supposed to. The end of the thin feather pen was chewed to almost nothing. It went again between the straight teeth to be softly gnawed.

A subtle burn came into Snape's eyes then. Only then imagining the lips that would substitute for the meager quill, he bit down hard, snapping it harshly in his teeth. The nauseatingly think ink slowly dribbled out of the side of his grinning mouth.

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Some of the sentences are a bit strangely laid out, but it's not bothering me enough to fix them. I might later.  



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